Victorian bastard(?)

[shayde78]

Additional pics, including the picture of the blade flexing

[ulfberth]

Hi Shayde ,
this one is indeed a Victorian copy , the leather has some age to it but if you look at the pommel and the crossguard you can see it's to perfectly rounded geometrical identical from all sides .
kind regards
Ulfberth

[Oliver Pinchot]

Incidentally, it's never wise to flex a blade this way.

[shayde78]

Oliver,
Proper criticism. I look at that picture and cringe. An idiot move on my part.

Ulfberth,
Thank you for the straightforward assessment. I knew it was a long shot.
Some new questions come to mind now:

- When did the technology become available to create symmetrical hilt components? I'm interested in the guard, but specifically, I know that in the typography a spherical pommel is classified as type 'R' (right?). Can you show an example that is an authentic such pommel? I've had a devil of a time finding one since I first started looking to compare to the one on this copy. I'd love to see the differences side by side, and I hope that would prove interesting for others here, as well.

- Regarding the blade, I feel like the Victorians were prone to use stiff, overly heavy blades when creating their 'interpretations' of medieval weaponry. Could the one here be a repurposed rapier blade...actually, that seems unlikely given the size of the grip that the tang pass thru. Since I debunked my own question, do you think a blade was forged specifically for this historimus, and would they have bothered making one that seems so well tempered?

As always, I appreciate the willingness to share such a wealth of knowledge. Of course I'm a bit disappointed, but the education is well worth the cost of tuition

[fernando]

Not that we encourage the discussion of replicas, as per the scope of this particular forum but, let us consider this is still within context.

[Oliver Pinchot]

In this case, the symmetry ulfberth is talking about can come from both turning (lathing) and casting. But more to the point, they are simply not wrought up.

Beyond this, the forms of the pommel and guard are wrong when compared with originals. The ability to recognize this (and one can, with study) from almost any photos, will save a lot of guess work. And expense.

[ulfberth]

Casey's sword is a good example of an original sword with a similar pommel, you can also see what is meant by "to symmetrical" on both the guard and the pommel . The blade on yours is to thick near the tip, in fact the whole just looks evident 19th C at the first glance. Weather blades were tempered or not on 19th c reproductions would entirely depend on the maker. There is a wide variation on 19th c reproductions, from wall decoration to real works of art, swords of 19th c maker Ernst Schmidt for instance sell for serious prices and Anton Conrad a bit later even higher, sometimes higher than originals.